PTA Wins One Oscar After Another

Well that was a great Oscar ceremony, both the show and the winners. As expected, Conan absolutely excelled as host. Now that he had a year under his belt he felt even more loose and relaxed. Here's hoping he can keep coming back for the foreseeable future. The show itself was classy and well produced (minus the inexplicable sound issues that were never resolved the entire show. Great job giving out the Sound Oscar when one of the presenters was inaudible!). And those winners? Well, they mostly got it right.

As expected, Paul Thomas Anderson finally won an Oscar (three of them actually). He has long been overdue, and for him to win for this film was a real great moment. But his film wasn't the only big winner. Sinners still took home four Oscars, and it really felt like either film could win at the last minute. And the most exciting category of the year, Best Actor, truly lived up to the hype. Any one of them could have won, but Michael B. Jordan winning was perhaps the most thrilling possible choice. He knew this was a big moment for him and culture, and he met the moment. I was on the edge of my seat for his entire speech. Once he won SAG he made so much sense at this point in his career to win. The kinds of films he will be able to get made now after this win will be significant, like Denzel in the 90's. I can't wait to see where his career goes now.

Really, there were so few missteps all night. Even wins I wasn't a fan of, like Jesse Buckley, were still great in that I love her as an actress and am glad she has an Oscar. Sean Penn, on the other hand, did not need a third Oscar, and it makes his win over Bill Murray 22 years ago all the more frustrating. If they'd known how often he'd win they could have spread the wealth around. But maybe they felt he needed another one since he may have already melted down the other two and given the gold away. But one win I wasn't mad about was Amy Madigan, who always felt like the right choice in her category, and I'm glad voters agreed. Now hopefully we can finally get her husband a matching trophy.

So overall just a great night. I'd put this show up there with the very best of them, with very minor missteps. I think the current producers understand the weight of a classy and funny show, and they have been meeting that moment consistently these last two years. As we head into the 100th Oscars soon, here's hoping that they continue to walk the right balance of prestige and humor so we can get a truly great 100th anniversary.

Some final thoughts:

• Every year they do something wrong with In Memorium, either a song choice, missing too many people, rushing through, or something else. Not this time. They got it exactly right, give or take a slightly rambling Barbara Streisand monologue. Breaking it out for three specific individuals was a nice touch, although I don't know that Diane Keaton was more deserving that Robert Duvall. But overall it was a great way to do it.
• One area they need to work on is the presenter banter. Most of the presenter moments were borderline awful, with Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans being maybe the low point of the whole night. Either get better presenters, or better writers, something was off there.
• One presenter who nailed it was Kumail Nanjiani, who handled presenting a tie perfectly. He even made a great off the cuff joke that it was ironic that the Short category would now have to take twice as long.
• Both musical performances were done wonderfully, with the fluid camera movement in "I Lied To You" really emphasizing how cool that moment was in the film. I'm surprised "Golden" came so late in the night given the target audience of that song, but they also had a wonderful performance.
• Matt Berry was a fun, if unusual choice for announcer. I love the way he speaks, but sometimes it felt like he was mocking things, specifically Burger King, who probably weren't too happy to be launching this new "We're sorry" campaign right after Berry seemingly mocked them in how he announced them.
• I went 21/24 this year, among my better years. I got all the Shorts right, which helps. I don't think anyone called that Casting surprise, so that's a very good score. Surprising given how unsure a lot of races felt, but I went with my gut and it paid off.

So can we keep this momentum going for a few more years? Not every year will have as cool of a top two films as this year did, but if we can at least have a show this good again then that is a step in the right direction.